[Gregory Dowling]

Forget the squabble between Met and Deep End; forget Non-Met. it's all happening on the Translation Board right now.

This is just to draw attention to the Board that is now situated just below Non-Met. At the moment there are fine translations by Susan McLean, Mark Alllinson, Michael Skippkauskas, Adam Elgar and Sam Gwynn - from Latin, Greek, Hungarian, Italian and French. The level of commentary and criticism is high but I'm sure that all the translators would be happy to see the circle enlarged.

So come on in.

Gregory

[Clive Watkins]

Well said, Gregory!

Other commitments make it difficult for me to participate at the Sphere as fully as I once used to do, but I look in frequently and have been impressed by the liveliness and talent on display at Translation.

As it happens, I am going to a reading tonight at the Wordsworth Trust in Grasmere given by the poet and translator, David Constantine, who edits <u>Modern Poetry in Translation</u>.

Kind regards...

Clive

[Maryann Corbett]

Let me ask a question, then.

I've assumed that knowledge of the original language is necessary for helpful participation in a thread on Translation. Yes? No? Preferred?

Maryann

[Janet Kenny]

Marann,
Because I feel strongly that the translator is a servant of the original work I do worry that those who lack any deep knowledge of the original language may inadvertantly flatter a translator to favour a superficially impressive result without realising that it betrays the original.
I think we may enjoy translations from languages outside our experience but have to be very humble about offering advice.
Best,
Janet

[Gregory Dowling]

Maryann,

Obviously those with knowledge of the original language will have extra insight to offer but I have had very helpful advice in the past on translations I have posted from people with no Italian. After all, they are the people for whom the translation is intended and if it doesn't work for them it's a pointless exercise. And while I agree with Janet that a translator should consider him/herself as a servant of the original work, I also hope that my translations can be read by and for themselves; after all, we would confine ourselves to literal prose versions otherwise.

And let's face it, if only those with knowledge of the original language contributed, Mike Slipp's threads with his translations from the Hungarian would be pretty brief.

Clive, thanks for coming in here. I've long thought I ought to subscribe to Constantine's magazine but haven't got round to it yet. Thanks for reminding me.

Gregory

[Janet Kenny]

Gregory,
I absolutely agree that the poem must be enjoyed by the reader but still the danger lurks of the seductive shift away from the deeper intention of the original in order to satisfy the reader-- but still attributed to the defenceless writer.

Style is so much part of the message. We played an early Toto movie to some rather snobbish friends and all they could see was a coarse slapstick comedy. The narrative wasn't the comedy. It was the dialect and the history behind the body movements. All so difficult to explain.

Janet

[Gregory Dowling]

I know what you mean, Janet. My son persuaded some of his friends to watch a dubbed version of his favourite British comedy, "The Office", on Italian MTV. Afterwards, he wondered why he had bothered; they all thought it was very feeble. Totò is equally untranslatable, despite being one of the great comic geniuses of the last century.

But these are special cases and it's simply not true that all verbal comedy (if we're limiting ourselves to that for the moment) is untranslatable. Woody Allen, for example, is hugely popular in translation. Indeed, I believe he's even bigger in France and Italy than he is in the US, even though a great many nuances must inevitably disappear.

To get back to poetry: Frost tells us, it can't be done, and he's right. I know that I'm not reading Attila Jozsef when I read one of Mike's translations - but I also know that it is as close as I'm ever going to get to reading him and I'm enormously grateful to Mike for the experience. And to a certain extent it has to be a matter of trusting the translator; I think one can usually tell when a translator feels his obligations fully enough. For example, when I read a Robert Lowell "imitation", I know damn well I'm reading Lowell and not a translation of Baudelaire or Rilke; it may be exhilarating but it's not, as you put it, in any sense a service to the original.

[Rose Kelleher]

Based on this thread I don't know whether my posting comments in that forum would be welcomed or seen as the height of arrogance. Perhaps that's why more people don't post there.

Mark provided a literal translation along with his own. I don't know Greek, but I can compare the literal translation to what he's come up with. Of course there are little things you won't see when you don't know the language (like the formal/informal "you" in Spanish), but the literal translation gives you some idea how faithful the translator's been. Those of you who want more comments should consider doing that too - it might embolden more people to speak up.

[Mike Slippkauskas]

All,

Humble thanks to Gregory for starting this thread and for his generous remarks on my work in particular. I don't know if my versions of Jozsef are the closest anyone will get to him, but they are, when finished, my own best readings of the poems. Rose, please, please, please, you are welcome! No one would think you arrogant for commenting. All the help I've gotten on Translation is precisely akin to the help I'd receive on Met or TDE -- this phrase is clumsy, this rhythm faulty, that sounds rhyme-driven, what are you really saying here? The best help is from those ignorant of the Hungarian. They see what works or doesn't in English, unclouded by justifications vis a vis what the "original means". By some mysterious process, I almost inevitably get closer and closer lexically, metaphrastically, to my original as I revise. Maybe because I translate masters and the best thing to do is trust them.

A great pleasure alluded to by Gregory, Janet and others is the discussion that ensues concerning translation. Every possible theory or approach, every issue will be touched upon. I enjoy Gregory's comment on Lowell. We all know Lowell's harsh, crabbed, stress-heavy style and his bizarre figures (I say all this admiringly although, interestingly, it all might sound pejorative). When we get all that in his Homer or Villon, Rilke or Sappho, we know it is Lowell we hear. I like to think I efface myself in my translations. I try to say only what my original says, in comparable form. The closer I get to that ideal, the closer I get to the original's spirit.

But perfect translation is impossible. I'll leave you with an anecdote. I shared a translation with an elderly Hungarian, formerly of the aristocracy. He was one of the few Hungarians who was not overfamiliar with Jozsef (1905-1937). He was out of the Military Acadamy by the time Jozsef's reputation was secured in the 40s, and the "Baron" was no poetry lover. He read the Hungarian text aloud to me, then read my English. Mine was "much better, so lovely, really it's just wonderful what you've done." The original he said was very plain, a little low (as in of the lower-class!) and sounded "just so desparate". An excellent, if unwitting, critic. And, for me, a devastating one. And I had tried so hard not to embellish or prettify. The two language artifacts inevitably had somewhat different tones.

Very best,
Mike Slipp

[Maryann Corbett]

I too would like to thank Gregory for starting the thread, Clive for chiming in, Rose for her great suggestion, and Janet, Greg, and Mike for their answers.

Maryann